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Ghazini

It all started when V. Devji from Indiatimes, called in to check if he can drop in at my office to discuss a probable tie up for an upcoming promotion. It was somewhere in the year 2005.

The film he wanted to co-promote was a big Telugu movie with star casts like Prabhu Deva, Chiranjeevi, and works. I couldn’t recall the name though but would like to share some memoirs from my good old marketing days.

I eventually couldn’t go ahead with the idea as they couldn’t manage to rope the above two celebrity to meet my Indicom customers. Not ready to settle for less, I parked the promotional contest from my kitty to the magnanimity of corporate team and moved on to find another cost-effective idea to enhance customer’s participation and align my revenue KRAs

My boss then suggested “Biryani with Sangeetha”, telecom’ typical ‘meet and dine with celebrity” based contest. Sangeetha was an upcoming actress, based known for “I love you Rasna” campaign of the yesteryears. [Remember the child actress mouthing one of the cheesiest tagline of Indian advertisement- Coffee- papa ko nahi chahiye; Chai- papa ko nahi chahiye. Papa ko phir kya chahiye? Rasna- I love you Rasna. Ab chaar naye flavor mein].

Yup, the same cutie pie, who was lost into oblivion only to surface back on south Indian cinemascope. So, did we go ahead with our biryani campaign? Well No! For the price, our little starlet was demanding was quite high considering her non-descript popularity to run an expensive campaign around. My team saw the logic, negotiations dropped and onus returned back to me.

Its then I decided to go for my usual SMS based quiz contest on any recent blockbuster of Andhra hinterland. Which blockbuster? Well, bosses said- “you decide” but make it more drawing than “Biryani” proposition.

Ghazini was the outcome of my casual “ask ur localites-colleague” poll and Internet-based secondary research on blockbusters. I studied the film, researched the production, designed 10 questions on multiple choice format and launched the contest. Surprisingly, the internal launch mail stirred a lot of curiosity from my colleagues and I was invited to a lot of coffee breaks to share my newly recognized passion for south Indian movies.

And then one day, I heard they are re-making Ghazini in Hindi. With so much of fanfare and hype built around, the movie, unfortunately, failed to deliver as much as it’s down south counterpart. Or maybe it was the sad progression of a lovely love story that made us sad. Well, Love’s like that!!! But still, kudos to the team for bringing in such a novel idea and adaptation. Impressive starcast, loveable songs and I had an amazing experience watching this movie. Apart from being my first movie in Mumbai, it was one of the movies which kept me awake whole night with reflections of a mere one scene. [No price for guessing- The cruel murder scene where the villain brutally hammers the actress to death. Asin has emoted brilliantly through her eyes; you could feel the combined helplessness. Life’ like that!!!]

And today, when I read about the high revenue the movie is registering at turnstiles. Sigh, I really hoped if I wouldn’t have let go of my product mgt role, would have made quite some cash registers ringing for my application based contests too and not just being a silent viewer of “meet ghazini stars” [ a contest ran by Corporate] Talking about life coming to full circle and missed opportunities.

The autor is half Human, half machine. Go Figure or just revel in what I write